“Temporarily disabled. They blew the back section of it off. It’ll fly again someday”
“And my planes?”
“I saved this one,” said McKenna. “Best I could do.”
The prince nodded grimly, as if lamenting the passing of a dozen old comrades — which in a way he was. “You deserve a reward,” he said. “It is yours.”
“What is?”
“The MiG.”
“Really?” McKenna looked back at it. “No kidding?”
The prince looked at her solemnly. “My uncle owes you his life. I would give you twenty such planes”
“I’ll settle for this one and a new set of brakes,” said McKenna. “Mind if we get some grub? Those Dreamland people were nice, but the only thing they had to eat were MREs. One more peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a tube and my stomach would have hit the eject button.”
Sahurah watched as the men pulled the last of the metal from the wrecked hangar entrance. Two of the hangars at the prince’s side of the airport had been completely destroyed, but only the doorway to this one had been blown up. A large aircraft sat untouched a few yards away.
“It may be of use,” said Yayasan, the pilot who had deserted from the sultan’s air force. “It hasn’t been used often, but it was flown recently. The Russians called it a Tu-16. The Western nations referred to it as a Badger. This model was used for maritime patrols, and some bombing.”
“Could we use it against the sultan’s forces?” asked Sahurah.
“Certainly. There are machine-guns, those racks are there for bombs or missiles. Missiles, but we could use bombs.”
“Can you fly it?”
“I have never done so.”
“That is not my question.”
Sahurah looked into the pilot’s face, filled with fear. Sahurah knew from his own experience how difficult a foe fear was. He wished he had the ability to inspire others to face it, but realized he did not. Sahurah turned and started to walk away.
“I will try, Commander,” said the pilot behind him. “I will try.
Chapter 92
Dog tried the radio again, but once more all he got was static. The terrorists had stopped firing their weapons but they were still in the jungle somewhere across the road.
“I think they’ll follow us all the way to the coast,” Dog told Lang as they crouched in the weeds, catching their breath. “They’re persistent bastards.”
“No, they won’t go that far,” said the sergeant. He pointed to the south. “There’s another group coming up on our side. Look.”
Dog saw the last man in the small column as he ducked over a hilltop in the brush about a quarter of a mile away.
“Shit,” said Dog. He picked up his radio to broadcast again. “Wait,” said the sergeant. “Listen.”
Dog raised his head and heard the chopper approaching from the distance.
Sitting in the front seat of the Quick Bird as it whipped toward the area where Colonel Bastian had been located, Danny caught a glimpse of the Flighthawk darting back and forth in the sky. It looked like a crow protecting its young from a prowling cat.
“I see you, Zen,” Danny said over the Dreamland satellite circuit. “Are you in contact with them?”
“On and off. I haven’t had anything from him in the last ten minutes, but I have a rough idea of the location. The terrorists are very close by.”
He gave him GPS coordinates, and then described the spot as just west of the highway, about a hundred yards from a sharp bend.
Danny discussed it with the pilot, who thought their best bet would be to take the Quick Bird directly in while the Flighthawk laid down some covering fire near the terrorists. The pilot told Danny they could hover above the highway; if Dog came out they could pick him up, and if the bad guys came out they could fire at them themselves.
It was a risky plan, but the pilot claimed he’d done things twenty times as dangerous when he was flying with the 160th SOAR, the Army’s special operations helicopter regiment. Danny didn’t doubt that he was telling the truth.
They flew south a mile and a half, then made a wide turn on the side of the jungle where Zen thought Dog was. They dropped low and hovered over the road as the Flighthawk dipped down toward the trees, looking for something to shoot up.
“There,” said Boston. “On the left, your left, just in the ditch near the road.”
“And there,” said Danny, pointing ahead. “Terrorists at two o’clock”
Dog watched as the helicopter whipped over the road behind them and then started to turn. Before he could get up and run for it, it began firing at the row of trees to the north. The terrorists there answered, one of them firing a rocket-propelled grenade. Dog watched in horror as the grenade flew toward the cockpit of the plane and then seemed to disappear inside it. Fortunately, it had actually sailed to the side, curving like a baseball hit down the line. By the time it exploded in the jungle, the Quick Bird had unleashed a pair of TOW missiles into the tree line.
Lang began firing his M4, and Dog whirled around just in time to see six or seven terrorists throwing themselves down about three hundred yards away to the south. He too began to fire; as he did, something darted down overhead and he heard a roar and a grating sound, the kind of thing a garbage truck might make it if digested a load of steel.
“To the road, to the road,” Lang shouted, pulling him away as another grenade flew through the air. Dog fell backward; bullets flew nearby and he seemed to be breathing dirt.
“Stay down, stay down!” Lang yelled. The Flighthawk roared right overhead, its cannon roaring.
“The helicopter,” said Dog.
Lang didn’t reply. Dog raised his head, then felt something push it down as a fresh gunfire erupted nearby. Something hot creased the back of his neck.
“Let’s go, let’s go!” yelled Lang, and Dog found himself running up onto the road. The helicopter appeared on his left, moving along slowly with its skid a foot from the ground. One of the Whiplash people, dressed in his black body armor and helmet, leaned out and started firing his gun toward the rear, while someone else leaned from the front of the cockpit. Dog threw himself toward the helicopter, grabbing for it; as he did he felt it lifting away from him. His M4 slipped away but he knew better than to fish for it; he felt himself falling to the rear and his stomach revolted for a moment. Green and black swirls passed before his eyes and his head rattled with the roar of the engine. He saw something green below his feet and realized he was not quite inside the helicopter, even though they were lifting up above the trees.
Zen saw the helicopter dart upward. Three figures were clinging to the side.
“Clear,” Zen told Breanna.
“Launching”
The bomb fell from the belly of the Megafortress, sailing on a direct, short dive to the roadway where the terrorists were emptying their assault weapons at the helicopter and Flighthawk. The helicopter managed to clear away before the weapon exploded, but Zen had doubled back to keep the terrorists interested, and the blast of the thousand-pound warhead was so immense that the small plane stuttered momentarily, tossed so severely that Zen thought he’d lose it.
“Good shot,” said Zen finally, back in full control of the plane. “How’s your fuel?” Breanna asked.
“Have to tank inside twenty minutes. How’s yours?”
“We’re fine for four or five hours. Let’s escort the helicopter back, then set up a refuel. We may have to head back to the Philippines or to one of the Malaysian airports,” she added. “I don’t know that they’re going to be able to move Indy off the end of the runway any time soon.”